Monstervision.org Presents

Ghost(1990)

Unchain your melody

A murdered New Yorker (Patrick Swayze of MonsterVision's Red Dawn) tries to warn his girlfriend (Demi Moore of MonsterVision's The Seventh Seal) that she, too, is in danger. But she can't see or hear him, so he goes to a fake psychic for help (Whoopie Goldberg, who played Guinan in Star Trek Generations). She can't see him either, but she can hear him, so she relays messages to Demi. Critics didn't think Swayze showed enough emotion in this romantic fantasy-thriller, but it was a huge box-office hit, Swayze's first since "Dirty Dancing."

Whoopie Goldberg won an Oscar for this role, as did the screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin. The film was directed by Jerry Zucker, and the pottery-wheel scene was so memorable that his brother David Zucker spoofed it in Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear the following year (want o.j. with that?)

While "Ghost" didn't make it to MonsterVision (the rental fee was too high), 1996's Theodore Rex did, with Whoopie Goldberg as a cyborg cop partnered with a seven-foot-tall dinosaur. Anyway, "Ghost" at 122 minutes was rated PG-13, so it shouldn't need any editing for TV showings, though they may cut some chunks out to make room for commercials. If your significant other (or your other-worldly significant) wants to see a chick flick and you can't stand Somewhere In Time, try Ghost.

The Ghost(2000)

No relation to "Ghost," this more recent martial arts movie is about "a beautiful Chinese assassin who travels to America to make a hit." It was not seen in theaters in the U.S., instead going to The Movie Channel (original home of MonsterVision before TNT) and the direct-to-video route.